Wednesday, 12 November 2008

Book Review : ASP.NET 2.0 Step by Step

Just over a month ago I moved in with Smithy, during the expected packing and unpacking I came across a book that I bought close to 3 years ago when I started working at twentysix Leeds and was forced to learn .NET.

The book is "ASP.NET 2.0 Step by Step" from the Microsoft Press which and I've got to say, my initial opinion was not a good one, after getting just over half way through, I became disenchanted with and put to one side. I have since spent the last 8 months looking high and low for it, and even accusing my co-workers of losing it for me :S (sorry guys) as I found a desire to finish it.

My first attempt at reading the book was not a good one. I was coming from a solid 5 years of scripting things like Lingo, ActionScript, JavaScript and most importantly PHP; I was struggling with the structured and strict way that ASP.NET works when compared to (loose and, dare I say, sloppy) PHP pages. It also seemed a bit wordy for my liking. Some of my favourite programming books are the O'Reilly cookbook series which give you examples based around short, concise scenarios.

So, armed with my now solid 2 years of experience with C# and the .NET Framework I picked up the book again, found my old bookmark still stuck in at the end of chapter 13 and decided to have a little flick.

It just so happened that the next couple of chapters concerned subjects that have been on the agenda quite a bit recently, namely the caching of data and output within a web application.

These two chapters give a good introduction and now, with just over two years experience with C# and the .NET framework I find these chapters to be just enough to get me going on a subject. I now know how and where to look for further information on a subject from my time searching the usual places.

Having re-read the first 13 chapters I take back most of what I thought about it in the first place and can see that my original lack of enthusiasm for the book was not down to the book, but due to my inexperience with ASP.NET and all its in's and outs. I actually love this book now as it gives you insights into many of the key tools that you might use day to day in a ASP.NET web app.